


i come bearing gifts

by kalypsobean



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 03:12:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12547532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: Celebrimbor's ambition is the fall and rise of Middle Earth.





	i come bearing gifts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [uumuu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/gifts).



It is a truth well known to jewelsmiths that the most beauteous of pieces must be the most deadly. It is but a tale to most, a warning passed over the Sea and referring to that which was lost, never to be beheld in Arda save only in memory, a shadow pieced from recollection and myth, fleeting in itself.

 

It is, to Celebrimbor, a ideal he strives for; he dreams of doors which open only to those who have walked through them and leave strangers bereft of shelter in their times of need, swords which derive a will of their own from the power he imbues in their jewelled hilts and seek blood where it need not be shed, crowns that give light where there is none, drawing it out of the stars themselves. It would not be enough to match the legends, or capture the image of what had been, even if he crafted them so well as if it could be thought he had reached inside the minds of those who had seen them and crystallised a relic from the very memory.

It would be pure, such a relic, void of the bloodshed that called from the original and gave weight to the legends, imbuing them with the fear and awe necessary for their survival. It would only be a memory, revered for what it recalled. He would be praised, but the success would not be his. Such a feeling, he knows, is empty; he has lived long enough as the pupil, the successor, the second. He was the apprentice in Gondolin, and all he makes of what he learned there is inferior, even when he draws on all the pain, hiding beneath the facade that is Eregion.

 

For a time, he studies with the Dwarves, but they are a simple people, prizing value and simple beauty, the kind that comes from outside, reflecting light instead of capturing it. Mithril suits them, for it is thin and holds no light of its own, but it is sturdy and strong; from the Dwarves, Celebrimbor learns how to make settings far more illusive and fragile than those of Enerdhil, and how to temper the strongest of minerals until they bend to his will. For this, they call him friend, and his works are prized among the highest of Eregion society. It is not enough, for his crafts are still inert, his magic relying on incantations to bind only a finite power within, still void of their own will. They have only enough awareness to mock him, their very stillness, the milkiness of the jewels without a fire surrounding him as if a mirror of his soul, incomplete.

 

There is little for the Giftlord to teach him, and Celebrimbor is wary, for he knows the lesson in his heart and his mind, even those of his dreams which taunt him with visions of what he cannot make. But with his gifts there is no need for Celebrimbor's craft, no place for the soulless gems to go, and his workshop fills with experiments that do not come to life, do not dance or laugh in the light.

And so, Celebrimbor, too, learns the magic of the rings. His hands are steady, though he is always sure they will shake and betray him; his craft is sure enough, his methods so well ingrained that he performs them without thought, and his anger goes unmarked. 

Being the apprentice does not suit him now, and his work looks so plain, so dead, next to those forming across the forge; he dreams of blood, of finding some way to steal the power that is so wasted on someone who only makes trifles, rings.

 

It is then, when he almost understands how to capture that power for himself, that the Dwarves abandon him, taking rings for themselves and forgetting that they called him friend, and only him. 

He does not remember, after, how his workshop was destroyed, but he knows that the stone that lies there, among ashes from the forge he'd never before allowed to die, was made by his hand. It resembles an opal, but it shifts even without light to refract, and it is warm to the touch. It has a voice, and a pulse, and he knows well that none would believe him if he claimed it.

He carries the knowledge of the stone within him, as proof that he could surpass even the Giftlord, but the stone itself he puts outside even his reach, in the domain of the Dwarves. With it gone, his mind is clearer, though he had not known he was blinded, though his longing is not less, his anger not lessened, his ambition not quelled. 

 

Alone, in the ruins of his forge, he crafts three rings. He intends them as gifts, remembrances of himself, for that which is the most beauteous is the most deadly, and he has made the most beautiful work of them all, a living heart of stone. 

He does not put his own magic into the rings, nor does he enchant them with runes; he gives them nature itself, and whispers to them, in their making, of the power they will have. They will not live on their own, for that has been done before, and there is a risk that they will side against him, as the Dwarves did. Instead, he makes the rings such that their power cannot be drawn from them, and their light would be that of their host. 

He knows that, in secret, the Giftlord does this too, without stones, and only with flame. Celebrimbor uses shards that survived the fire, knowing they will not break, and he uses mithril, tempered beyond the knowledge of other Elves. He twists the metal with his hands, as if the image in his mind can only be brought into the world through his fingers. His blood eases the stones into their settings, and it is only then, when he is exhausted and weak, that he is satisfied.

 

He never sees them breathe on their own, but he knows they will surpass any other work made in this world, until it is broken anew. He knows their beauty will survive as legend even should they pass outside knowledge and time as their bearers succumb and fade, their purpose passed and the Giftlord fallen.

It is knowledge which does not comfort him as he passes into Mandos, for there he may only watch as his creations gain the life he so longed to give them himself.


End file.
